The heads of governments of the CIS countries signed an agreement on the conditions governing mutual settlements between operators in the provision of international telecommunications services in the CIS countries at the meeting in Dushanbe on Oct. 30. According to earlier reports, the draft agreement was drawn up by the Russian Communications Ministry and was approved by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in late September.

According to the text of the document, the parties intend to work together on developing approaches to the establishment and changes of the billing increment in mutual settlements between operators, including in international roaming.

The agreement provides that mutual settlements between operators should be conducted on a non-discriminatory basis for operators and clients, and also on the basis of the principle of transparency in the formation of tariffs. A non-discriminatory approach is also expected to be used when levying taxes that are included in inter-operator tariffs. The agreement also mentions the measure to eliminate disproportion in the tariffs on one and the same communications track.

The issue of reducing the cost of international roaming has been actively discussed since October 2014, when the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the anti-monopoly agencies of other countries, including the CIS, came up with a relevant ‘roadmap’. The date of the first stage of its implementation has recently been extended to March 1, 2016.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) formed when the former Soviet Union (now called Russia) totally dissolved in 1991. At its conception it consisted of ten former Soviet Republics: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.